Costa Rica Retirement – Adventures of Joram

 

One day, Joram decided to repair his roof. The leaks were not too bad, but it was time to replace parts of it, so he hired a Costa Rican man to assist him in the re-roofing.

Roofs on Costa Rican houses usually are made of panels of tin bolted together. It is a fairly simple matter to replace a panel when it has rusted or begins to leak. The job does require two sets of hands, however, to manipulate the large tin panels.

Joram and his Costa Rican employee worked on the roof through the morning. They worked quickly, because Joram really didn’t know any other way of working other than fast and furiously.

As the noon hour approached, the employee indicated that he wanted to go to lunch.

“Well, certainly, he could go to lunch,” Joram told me, “although we still had quite a bit of work to do. I would see him when he had returned from eating, and we would complete the job then. We would have to work quickly, but we could do it before the afternoon rains arrived.

“Well, the lunch hour ended, and the worker did not return. It got later and later. Clouds begin to form on the horizon, and my house stood there with no roof on it to ward off the coming deluge.

“I asked Ana, ‘How soon is it going to rain?’

“She answered, ‘It’s raining over there across the hills already. It will rain here in about a half hour.’

“I was completely panicked. I rushed to the hardware store, hurried back home, and threw tarp over the top of the house, just as the rains began to come down.

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“The worker never came back all afternoon. I was furious! I gathered up his tools, put them outside the front gate, and told Ana, ‘When he shows up, you tell him he is fired and to go away.’

“Well, he finally did show up – on Monday morning – three days later! He was all full of smiles and ‘buenos dias’ and ready to go to work as if nothing had happened.

“I told him he was fired, and he became all hurt and confused, wondering why I was upset. What had he done? Something had come up. He couldn’t come back last Friday, but now he had returned ready to work, so it should be okay with me.

“He was baffled, and I was baffled because he didn’t understand why I was upset.

“I asked my Costa Rican neighbors about this experience, and every single one of them had the same reaction: ‘You gringos just don’t get it!’

“And they were right. I didn’t get it.

“Ana explained to me that, first, it was the rainy season. A wise person would not have begun such a big job as re-roofing during the rainy season without realizing that something might happen to delay its completion and that the job likely would not be done before the afternoon rains came.

“The chances are always great that ‘something’ might come up that would cause plans to change. You must be flexible in all things in this culture. It is not linear, things do not follow a gringo time-related order. The ‘moment’ is always more important than some scheduled ‘activity,’ even an activity as important as a job.”

Any gringo thinking of moving to Costa Rica, or any other Latin American country, had better understand the lessons of Joram’s stories. You can be assured that Latin American cultures are not going to adjust to YOU, so you had better be prepared to adjust to them.

Joram needed to see the doctor, so he called to make an appointment.

The doctor’s secretary told him, “Come at three this afternoon.”

“A few minutes before three, I showed up at the doctor’s office,” Joram
said. “I was the only patient to have arrived, but within a few minutes several
other people also came in. But not the doctor.”

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“After about 30 minutes, the doctor arrived, greeted everyone warmly, and
went into her office. The secretary followed her in there.”

“A few minutes later, the secretary came out and indicated to a young woman
that she should go into the doctor’s chambers. That young woman had been one of
the last to arrive.”

“So I get up and walk over to the secretary and ask very politely, with a
smile, ‘Why did she get to go in first to see the doctor? Did she have
an earlier appointment?”

“The secretary smiles and says ‘No. That is the doctor’s niece.”

“Well, I just lost it! I yelled, ‘Well then, let the doctor treat her at
home! I was here first!”

“The secretary was shocked by my reaction. She didn’t know what to do. She
got up and fetched the doctor, who also didn’t understand why I was upset. They
both assured me that the doctor would see me as soon as she could. All the
other people in the waiting room were confused and embarrassed by my reaction. I could tell that I had made them all very uncomfortable.

“When I got home, I told Ana about what had happened, and she asked, ‘Well,
tell me, Joram. Did you get to see the doctor any sooner because of how
you acted?”

I admitted that, no, I had not.

Ana continued, “Well, Joram, do you think that next time the doctor
and secretary will behave differently because of how you acted?”

Again, I said, no, I did not think they would.

“Well then, Joram, what exactly did you accomplish be reacting the way you
did? Do you feel better?”

“No, I did not.”

“Do you think it is good for your health to react that way?”

“Well, I know it wasn’t, because a few weeks later I had my heart attack.”

Any gringo thinking of moving to Costa Rica, or any other Latin American country, had better understand the lessons of Joram’s stories. You can be assured that Latin American cultures are not going to adjust to YOU, so you had better be prepared to adjust to them. Or else, have very good health insurance!

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